1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a food garbage disposer, and more particularly, to a food garbage disposer improved in not only preventing an offensive odor from generating since condensed water produced in a condenser can be utilized for filtering vapor discharged out of a reaction vessel, but also automating a full operation thereof since temperature of the reaction vessel is automatically controlled to facilitate drying and decomposition of food garbage.
2. Description of the Related Art
In general, a conventional food garbage disposer simply dries food garbage using a heating means such as a heater, etc., or dehydrates the food garbage through compression or the like and dries it using hot air without changing its shape when the food garbage is introduced into a storage space. Further, air discharge is connected to a drainpipe or the outside without undergoing separate deodorization, thereby causing secondary pollution or an offensive odor.
The heating means heats and dries the food garbage during an operating time typically set by a timer or the like. However, in such a conventional heating-and-drying type food garbage disposer that merely dries the food garbage by heating and cutting to thereby reduce the weight and the volume of the food garbage, the timer of setting the operating time is not enough to fully automate the food garbage disposer.
That is, the operating time is manually set using the timer, so that it cannot reflect a drying time considering the amount, the kind, and a water-contained state of food garbage. Thus, if the food garbage is not completely dried, the timer has to be set again to perform additional drying. Further, air discharged from a reaction vessel does not undergo deodorization, thereby causing an offensive odor.
On the other hand, even if the drying of the food garbage is already completed within the setting time, the heating means may still operate until the setting time is over, thereby wastefully consuming energy.
To overcome the foregoing problems, the inventor of the present invention disclosed the food garbage disposers in Korean Patent Registration Nos. 0686957 and 0613663.
Referring to these registration inventions, the food garbage disposer includes a reaction vessel to heat and dry the food garbage, a condenser to cool and separate vapor discharged from the reaction vessel into water and air, a blower to transfer the separated air to a deodorizer, the deodorizer to deodorize the transferred air, and an air circulation adjusting pipe to mix the deodorant air with external air and return it to the reaction vessel. The reaction vessel is provided with a stirrer to stir the food garbage and assist decomposition and drying of the food garbage. Further, the reaction vessel is heated by heat-medium oil in a heat-medium oil tank attached to a bottom of the reaction vessel.
In the registration inventions proposed to solve the above-described problems, the whole system including the reaction vessel is controlled to operate according to a preset temperature and an interior temperature change of the reaction vessel in which the food garbage is put and heated, and the heat-medium oil is additionally reheated with waste heat generated by a heat supplying pipe attached to the deodorizer, thereby providing the food garbage disposer that perfectly treats the food garbage irrespective of the amount and characteristics of the food garbage while reducing energy consumption.
Thus, the registration inventions remarkably solve the foregoing problems but still have problems as follows.
First, pipes of the condenser, the blower or the deodorizer are clogged with dust, i.e., byproducts produced in the reaction vessel while decomposing the food garbage, so that the food garbage disposer stops or malfunctions.
Second, a silicon oil-seal used in a join between the stirrer and the reaction vessel gets worn out by long-time rotation of a stirring shaft, the byproducts, etc. as time goes by, so that a leakage damages a bearing. The damaged bearing causes the food garbage disposer to get out of order or the byproduct to leak.
Third, the air circulation adjusting pipe has to be adjusted to a maximum external air influx ratio, but the vapor may flow backward and the waste heat may not be used again. Therefore, the continuous circulation decreases the efficiency of the operation.
Fourth, efficiency of separating the vapor containing much water into condensed water and condensed air in the condenser is low, so that the deodorizer and the reaction vessel decrease in efficiency, thereby delaying the operating time of the food garbage disposer.